Downtown Las Vegas During Shutdown

I spent the last night of my road trip in the best decent hotel in downtown Las Vegas available on the booking site I always use.

Coming up out of Death Valley, I purposely lingered on the Nevada border, where there is a giant cow statue. I took a business call before catching the last hour of sunlight to connect onto the main arterial highway heading south into Las Vegas.

Normally I would avoid driving after full dark, but I went at least a half hour past civil twilight. Not only was it easier to navigate the freeways on the edge of the metropolis after dark, but downtown Las Vegas is more accessible by dark, because the buildings are simplified by the outlines in neon. I found the scummy parking garage of the Downtown Grand parked beside other nice cars in a well lit area. Then I dragged my bags down a grimy stairway to the street. I found myself popped out into the dark as a couple older buddies walked by, surprised by my sudden appearance out of the door.

I dragged my bag across Ogden Street into the well-lit but completely empty valet parking area of the hotel. The temperature stand at the door was unmanned. I found myself in the Casino, which had about a dozen people on the entire floor visible. Being a veteran of such hotels, I knew it would entail navigating a small maze to get to the hotel checkin. They'd lover for you to blow your entire wad in the machines before you even get there. There are always multiple twists and turns, designed to get you disoriented. Fortunately the maze was small and I was immediately at the desk checking in. 

It made me miss the Trump International, which is not a casino. You walk into the lobby like a normal hotel. 

But I'd figured it was necessary to experience Downtown during the shutdown, as I had the area around the strip. So I found my room. It took going up an escalator, then across a sky bridge giving a web of the Mob & Law Enforcement Museum, which I had not visited when Lars and Stefan went there during our 2017 visit to this city.

On the other side of the skybridge was a tower part of the hotel, which evidently had been acquired by purchase and grafted onto the previous hotel. I went up the elevator the 14th floor. The lobby smelled a little of garbage. But it was newer, so no cigarette smoke,  My room had a great view of the lights of downtown. I stood looking out at the neon and the  building-sized video screens on the side of other hotels, as well as a huge screen  in the nearby Fremont Street Experience showing an English soccer match.

After checking in, I walked around a bit after dark looking for a bite to eat. I walked over to Fremont Street, the covered area of downtown. There was a metal barricade. I figured it was to make sure people were wearing masks. It was. I decided to forgo going inside.  A peek was all I needed to see how mostly empty it was, even though the music was just as loud.  A group of Las Vegas police and EMTs were nearby carting away several people, one young man in handcuffs, and two older guys, one strapped on a stretcher and one in a wheel chair, ranting as they pushed him towards an ambulance.  Being that it was none of my business, I didn't turn and scrutinize them for any details.

It seemed about half the businesses were open, that might have been normally open that night in downtown. I thought about grabbing a burger at the restaurant inside the El Camino, which had been a famous mobster's first purchase in Las Vegas after World War II, but the odor of ancient smoke permeating the casino repelled me back out onto the street. I'd been there anyway. It is no great shakes. The most boring architecture in the world is the interior of casinos. Everything of interest about them is on the outside.

Finally I found myself is the downtown 7-11 buy a chicken sandwich and a coffee drink and pastry for the morning. Casino hotels don't have coffee in the rooms. They want you out of your room and in the lobby as quickly as possible. The Trump International had coffee in the room.